Improve and enhance the wellbeing of FIFO employees

Client Objectives

The organisation sought to measure the wellbeing of their employees on a remote site that had recently been re-staffed by FIFO employees.

Key goals:

• Receive feedback and a review of this company’s employees’ perceptions on areas that could be maintained or improved on-site in order to support wellbeing.
• As part of the feedback, develop and facilitate a presentation to employees on the findings from a study by the Centre for Transformative Work Design (CTWD) on the impact of FIFO work arrangements on the mental health and wellbeing of FIFO workers, to assist in raising awareness about wellbeing.

Situation

Due to increased staffing on site, along with the release of findings from the CTWD study, the organisation wanted feedback on the current research around how best to support the wellbeing of its workers.

In addition, they wanted to gauge current employees’ perceptions around areas that the organisation could improve or maintain employee wellbeing, as well as some timely, targeted, and effective recommendations for action.

Challenge

The challenge lay in providing a means by which each employee had a chance to discuss where they thought the organisation or site could make improvements to enhance wellbeing. Additionally, it was important to start by setting the scene and creating an environment where staff felt at ease discussing their suggestions for change.

It was also important to ensure that presentations, surveys, and focus groups fitted in with employees’ shift schedules. Although the surveys and focus groups were voluntary, it was important to achieve a high response rate to ensure the validity of data and recommendations.

Solution

People Solutions approached this challenge in three stages:

1. Communicate FIFO Mental Health and Wellbeing Findings
Whilst on-site People Solutions facilitated and communicated a presentation on the findings within the CTWD report. By communicating the findings of the report, it allowed employees to begin thinking about their own wellbeing experience and areas of maintenance or improvement for their current work environment. This allowed us to set the scene for the focus groups, advise employees what these would look like and what our role was in the process, as well as to ensure confidentiality.

2. Experiencing the work environment
People Solutions travelled to site with a swing and experienced the site and facilities from the FIFO workers’ perspective. This allowed us to gather further information to contextualise the qualitative data that was provided by the workers and to come up with effective and pragmatic recommendations.

3. Focus Groups & Surveys
Small focus groups with a cross-section of employees were used to collect information from employees around their experience working FIFO and the elements of the work environment that impact their experience. The sessions began with a simple questionnaire as a means of gathering objective and quantitative data that wasn’t influenced by fellow employees’ subjective impressions and feedback.

Result

This organisation saw an outstanding response rate to the wellbeing survey. Participants were positive about the experience and appreciated the opportunity to share their feelings, thoughts, and ideas in relation to improving wellbeing on site.

People Solutions developed and presented a report based on both qualitative and quantitative information derived from the survey and focus groups. This information was provided to Human Resource Management as well as Senior Leadership along with further recommendations and targeted solutions for improving wellbeing on site.
The information was taken from this report, and senior leadership presented this to employees and address the areas they sought to improve, how, and to what time frame, so as to foster greater trust amongst employees.